Selective Procrastination

I have selectively procrastinated for as long as I can remember.

Does anyone else out there have this problem?

Selective procrastination, as I've come to understand it, is procrastinating while being productive.

Here's what I mean:

I'm supposed to be working on a grant right now. Instead of writing the grant, I've cleaned my bathroom and my kitchen.  I've responded to emails. I've reached out to some of our partner companies to see if they'll hire ScriptEd interns this summer.  I've asked my team to invite me to observe some of their classes.  Now, I'm writing my weekly blog post, and I'm going to start making myself dinner soon.

For the most part, these are all important things I need to do anyway, so I don't really think it's technically procrastinating.  I think that I'm just 'selecting' to do some of my to do list items and not others.

The reality is that I'm really just avoiding writing this grant.

What do you think? Tips anyone? Would you just call this procrastinating?

The Planners and The Executors

I've been thinking a lot lately about planning and executing, both at ScriptEd and in triathlon training. The more experience I have doing both, the more I recognize that planning and executing are two equally important but separate things.  It's really difficult to be a person who both plans and executes.
I think I'm starting to learn that for large projects and big undertakings, there needs to be people who plan, and people who can execute against that plan. One person shouldn't be playing both roles.

Here's an example of what I mean:

For the first five years of doing triathlons, I didn't have a coach. I made up my own plan (which was basically "run today, swim tomorrow, bike the next day...").  Because I have been an athlete for my whole life, this wasn't a terrible approach.  I did well. I also ended up spending a lot of time and energy first trying to come up with a plan, and then wasted some time executing on a plan that wasn't as good as it could be.

Now I have a coach (John Hirsch).  John is a professional triathlete and coaches tons of athletes, and brings his expertise to my training.  John makes my plan, and I execute against it. I don't have to spend time thinking about my workouts or my training schedule. John does that.  He listens to my progress and adjusts my plan accordingly. This saves me a ton of time.  I don't have to strategize, and the work that I'm doing has more of an impact on my progress as an athlete.

I'm learning the same thing at ScriptEd.  When ScriptEd started, I was both planning and executing against the plan.  ScriptEd is too big for that now. My time is not well spent if I'm the person executing against ScriptEd's plan. My job is to make the plan, adjust it as necessary, and make sure that my staff adjusts their execution as time goes on.  I don't always do this perfectly, but I'm getting a lot better.

Living Alone

On December 31st, I started living alone for the first time ever in my entire life.

I'm two weeks in. It's pretty amazing.

I moved into my apartment in March and had a roommate until mid-July. My fresh-out-of-college little brother moved into my apartment in August, and lived with me until he was able to secure his first full-time job (congratulations, Josh!).

The first week felt strange, but I got used to it quickly.  I'm spending a lot of time cleaning, decorating, reading, writing (it's grant writing season.. so tons and tons of writing happening now!) and sleeping.

I don't know how long I'll live alone, or if it's something all end up liking in the long run, but for now it's great. I've always wanted to try it, and for a long time I didn't think it would ever happen.  I'm proud of myself for making it happen.

It's 2016!

I'm back in the office after a relatively long hiatus for me -- 12 full days -- which is maybe the longest I've ever taken off of work, ever.  As I've written before, one of my goals for a long time has been to take a two-week vacation. This time-off almost hit that mark.  I was able to finish up a lot of personal projects that I had put off forever, and I think I learned a lot about myself by taking time off. By the end of it, I was definitely very excited to get back to work.  For better or worse, so much of who I am and how I perceive myself is wrapped up in my work.

I didn't set any New Years resolutions. Not to say I don't have goals -- I have lots of them --  I'm just not a huge believer in New Years resolutions.  I think that if there is something I want to accomplish, any time of year is a good time to start tackling it. I do think one of the things that came out of my 'time-off' reflections though is that I need to continue to prioritize my personal life and relationships, because I can very easily get sucked into work.  Generally, I think I'm doing much better than I was a year ago, though :)  I just need to keep working at it!


Happy New Year everyone!